Brody Dalle has testified in a Los Angeles courtroom that her former husband, Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, headbutted her and shared fantasies about murdering her as their marriage fell apart in 2019.
Dalle, vocalist/guitarist and songwriter in The Distillers, was speaking on day one of a trial convened following both parties filing domestic violence-related restraining orders against their former spouse.
Dalle told the court that Homme shared a fantasy about murdering her during an argument between the pair in November 2019.
“He said, ‘I’ve been thinking about wanting to kill you, and if I killed you, no one would know, because you’d be dead,'” Dalle testified. “I was in shock. I couldn’t believe that he would say something like that.”
The Melbourne-born musician also shared a graphic account of an alleged assault Homme carried out upon her.
“He head-butted me really hard,” she said. “I saw stars. I blacked out. My head went back, and I was on the ground. He bent down and he said, ‘You fucking faker.'”
Dalle revealed that the pair, who married in 2005, had been discussing separating in the weeks before the assault. She also testified that her former partner had threatened her during another verbally abusive confrontation in October 2019.
“We were talking about touring, and he was thinking about putting a tour right when my record was coming out,” she told the court. “I hadn’t released a record in a very, very long time, and I said, ‘I would never do that to you’. I said, ‘It’s weird and competitive.’
“He said, ‘Competitive? You think you’re my competition? I want to fucking strangle you right now.’ And he came up to the bed and he got on top of me and screamed, ‘You’re a fucking insane bitch.’ And I had my arms up in a foetal position, and he grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of bed onto the floor. I was terrified.”
Dalle said she filed for a restraining order and initiated her divorce after the head-butting incident.
She further claims that, in June 2021, Homme punched her car window, called her a “cunt” and said, “Hey Brody, fuck you forever.”
In 2004, Homme fired his close friend, bassist Nick Oliveri, from Queens Of The Stone Age after independently confirming a rumour that Oliveri had been physically abusive to his then-girlfriend.
“A couple years ago, I spoke to Nick about a rumour I heard,” Homme told Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 in 2005. “I said, ‘If I ever find out that this is true, I can’t know you, man.’ Because music and my life are the same thing, there’s no rules until something massive happens.”
Homme claims that Dalle was also physically abusive to hm during their marriage, and says his ex-wife called him “derogatory names.”
The restraining order hearing is expected to last 10 days, and will determine whether the emergency orders should remain in place.
